The bullying of academics follows a pattern of horrendous, Orwellian elimination rituals, often hidden from the public. Despite the anti-bullying policies (often token), bullying is rife across campuses, and the victims (targets) often pay a heavy price.
"Nothing strengthens authority as much as silence." Leonardo da Vinci - "All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men [or good women] do nothing." Edmund Burke

August 19, 2014

Bill Mullen,
a professor of English and American Studies at Purdue University and
one of the organizers of the effort to get the American Studies
Association to vote to honor the academic and cultural boycott of
Israeli institutions, reports on the tide of support for a
pro-Palestinian professor fired by the University of Illinois at
Urbana-Champaign.

Steven Salaita poses with his child

A MASSIVE public campaign in support of fired pro-Palestinian and
Arab-American scholar Steven Salaita has now generated more than 15,000
signatures calling for the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to
reinstate him. More than 2,000 faculty from around the world have
signed pledges to boycott UIUC until Salaita is given his job back.

But Salaita has not been offered his job back, and his status remains uncertain.

On August 1, Salaita received an e-mail from UIUC Chancellor Phyllis
Wise saying that his job offer to become an associate professor of
American Indian Studies was not likely to be approved by the University
of Illinois Board of Trustees.

Salaita had already signed an offer letter--the equivalent in
academia to an employment contract--to take the position as of October
2013. He sold his home in Virginia, where he was associate professor at
Virginia Polytechnic University, and was in the process of moving with
his family, including his two year-old son, when he received Wise's
notice.

Salaita was fired after the Daily Caller and the News-Gazette
newspapers in Champaign-Urbana published articles that included
criticisms of Salaita's twitter posts opposed to Israel's Operation
Protective Edge massacre in Gaza.

Send an e-mail expressing your support for Steven Salaita to UIUC Chancellor Phyllis Wise. Copy your e-mail to the chair of American Indian Studies Robert Warrior.

Subsequent to Salaita's firing, the Jewish Voice reported that
executives of the Simon Weisenthal Center had written a letter to
University of Illinois President Robert Easter calling Salaita's posts
"blatantly anti-Semitic."

After Israel began its bombing campaign on Gaza in July, Salaita, who
has written several books on Arab American literature and one critical
of Israel state policy, tweeted his outrage at the loss of Palestinian
life.

In an article published first at Mondoweiss,
Phan Nguyen carefully examined Salaita's tweets, showing that Salaita
was not only consistent in his criticism of Israeli state policy, but he
had a long record of criticizing anti-Semitism. Nguyen documents his
contention with numerous examples, including this tweet, for instance:
"I refuse to conceptualize ‪#Israel/‪#Palestine as Jewish-Arab acrimony.
I am in solidarity with many Jews and in disagreement with many Arabs."

Nguyen's article also pointed out that Salaita critics like Cary
Nelson had both misused and misinterpreted Salaita's twitter posts to
accuse him of anti-Semitism. Nelson is a longstanding backer of Israel
and critic of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement
against Israel. University of Illinois Chancellor Phyllis Wise has also
criticized BDS.

It is no coincidence then that Salaita has been fired for supporting the Palestinians and criticizing Israel.

August 18, 2014

Academics who have made disclosures reflect on the long-term impact on their careers

Whistleblowers in universities can hit the national headlines for
shining light on issues of public interest, only for their careers to
end up in very dark places.

Some of higher education’s most
prominent whistleblowers paint a bleak picture about the impact on their
subsequent careers. They talk about being persecuted by colleagues
after coming forward. But even after leaving their jobs, some believe
they still suffer a legacy. One talks about being “effectively
blackballed” from ever working again in higher education.

For
other whistleblowers, exile is self-enforced. “It has damaged my career.
But I’m not really sure I wanted a career by the end of it…There were
so many people in prominent leadership positions who behaved so
appallingly, I just couldn’t carry on within the profession. I just felt
sick about the whole thing,” says Aubrey Blumsohn, who left his post as
a senior lecturer in metabolic bone disease at the University of
Sheffield, after raising concerns in 2005 about research on a drug made
by Procter & Gamble, a funder of research at Sheffield.

But
others point to cases where whistleblowers highlight wrongdoing, their
concerns are investigated responsibly by universities and their working
lives continue as normal.

David Lewis, professor of employment law
at Middlesex University and convener of the International
Whistleblowing Research Network, argues that the media only report cases
“where things go pear-shaped”, as the nature of successful
whistleblowing means that it remains within institutions and never
emerges in public.

Lewis says that his anecdotal evidence suggests
there is “quite a lot of successful whistleblowing that goes on in
universities”.

Nevertheless, when things do “go pear-shaped”, the
impact on people’s careers can be shattering. Those cases may offer
lessons to learn, for both universities and prospective whistleblowers...

A head of department at Imperial College London has dismissed
complaints made against him of bullying as a conspiracy to oust him from
his position and replace him with his deputy.

Philippe Froguel,
head of the department of genomics of common disease at Imperial, made
the claim last week during cross-examination at an employment tribunal
case brought by Robin Walters, a former researcher in the department.

Dr
Walters, who is now a senior scientist at the University of Oxford, was
dismissed by Imperial at the end of 2011 after he refused to work under
Professor Froguel any longer.

Dr Walters is claiming unfair
dismissal, as well as victimisation, harassment and discrimination, and
alleges that various abusive encounters with Professor Froguel during
2011 – including one during which he claims he was shouted at for being
autistic – had left him suffering from acute adjustment disorder, which
results in feelings of depression and anxiety.

Dr Walters is
married to Alexandra Blakemore who, at the time, was a reader and
Professor Froguel’s deputy. She also lodged complaints of victimisation,
harassment and discrimination against Professor Froguel, but her case
was settled before hearings began. She is now a professor of human
molecular genetics in Imperial’s department of medicine.

At the
hearing, Professor Froguel said he had regarded Dr Walters as his
friend, whose recruitment he had spearheaded and for whom he had been
determined to secure a permanent lectureship. An opportunity to bring in
the necessary funding to achieve this had arisen in 2010, when Imperial
was invited to participate in a European Union-funded project, known as
Imidia, to improve diabetes treatment.

However, when Professor
Froguel’s work relations with Professor Blakemore began to break down in
early 2011, Dr Walters claims he was targeted by Professor Froguel
because of his relationship to her.
Professor Froguel strongly denied having threatened to destroy Professor Blakemore’s career or to sack Dr Walters.

He
told the hearing that he had occasionally been “hard and abrasive”
towards Dr Walters, such as when he made the remark about autism. “But
99 per cent of the time I have been extremely gentle,” he said, adding
that no one had complained about him in the past two and a half years.

The
tribunal heard that three other members of junior staff at Imperial
made complaints about Professor Froguel’s behaviour in the summer of
2011. It also heard that a faculty review in 2011 concluded that his
management had sometimes been “tactless and direct” and that a human
resources manager reported he had been warned to take a “gentler”
approach.

But he attributed this glut of complaints in 2011 to a
“conspiracy”. “They were a gang headed by [Professor] Blakemore [whose
aim was] to have me sacked or put on sick leave or sabbatical and [for
her] to take the lead as acting head of department,” he said.

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Useful and informative Links

• Bad Apple Bullies - If you work as a teacher in Queensland, a Bad Apple Bully principal can destroy your health and your career with malicious gossip and secret sticky-notes.

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• Bully Online - Those who can, do. Those who can't, bully. Bully OnLine is the world's leading web site on workplace bullying and related issues which validates the experience of workplace bullying and provides confirmation, reassurance and re-empowerment.

• Suppression of dissent - The general field of "suppression of dissent" includes whistleblowing, free speech, systems of social control and related topics. The purpose of the site is to foster examination of these issues and action against suppression. It is founded on the assumption that openness and dialogue should be fostered to challenge unaccountable power.

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• The Workplace Bullying Institute is the sole United States organization dedicated to the eradication of workplace bullying through public education, help for individuals, employer solutions and legislative advocacy.